A scientific theory never becomes a fact

New Scientist has a feature near the end of the magazine where reader questions shared in one issue are answered by other readers who send in submissions that are selected to appear in a later issue.

Below is a question and six answers related to when a theory becomes a fact. The answers make a lot of sense.

Even though I've been aware that when something is called a theory, this doesn't mean that it isn't a well-proven means of describing reality. But this is how many people view a theory -- as something speculative, as when we say "I've got a theory about why my car won't start."

All the answers are great, which isn't surprising, since they're chosen by staff of New Scientist, who obviously know a lot about science. I particularly like #3, which encapsulates some key features of science in just a few sentences.

Theories are interpretive structures that link facts. The more facts, the better. If facts are discovered that don't fit the theory, scientists embark on a search for a better theory. So science makes progress by being flexible, not viewing any truth as set in stone, since it can always be dislodged by fresh facts that call into question the validity of a theory.

Religions can't compete in this Game of Truth, because they typically are founded on faith, not facts. Even religions which claim to be a science of sorts aren't really open to having their Theory of God, or whatever, subjected to modification, improvement, or even rejection.

When does a theory become a fact and who decides?

Answer 1: A theory never becomes a fact. It is an explanation of one or more facts.
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Answer 2: A well-supported evidence-based theory becomes acceptable until disproved. It never evolves to a fact, and that's a fact.
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Answer 3: Many scientists, including the late Stephen Hawking, are happy to say that a theory never becomes a fact. It is always an interpretive structure that links facts, which are themselves reproducible experimental observations.

The "truth" of a theory is determined by its usefulness in linking the largest number of facts and predicting new ones that haven't been observed yet. Discovery of facts that don't fit the theory will lead to the search for a new theory.
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Answer 4: This question misunderstands what a theory is in the same way that creationists dismiss evolution as "just a theory." 

A theory isn't speculation about what might be true. It is a set of propositions that seek to explain a particular phenomenon or set of facts. A theory can be tested and shown to be accurate or modified as the evidence requires. Even when a theory is accepted as fact, it remains a theory.
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Answer 5: While a scientific theory such as Issac Newton's theory of gravitation makes an infinite number of predictions, it can only be verified by a finite number of observations, so it can never be seen as irrefutably correct. In philosophy, this is the problem of induction.

The fact that science rests on rather shaky epistemological foundations opens it to attack from anti-science movements, for example when creationists claim that Darwinian evolution is "only a theory." All science is, to some extent, "only theory," but its great strength is that theories that don't fit real world observations are eventually discarded. This has happened with Newton's theory of gravitation, now seen to be a special case of general relativity.

So in reality, in science we do not have facts or proof, all we have is the best available, most widely accepted theory at the time.
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Answer 6: Evolutionary pressures have favoured some organisms that are aware of their surroundings and able to react to them. Humans have become rather good at this.

We also have curiosity, which leads us to look hard at our surroundings and try to make sense of what we find. So, we gather information, and try to invent theories that could explain what we see. The better theories don't just explain all the data so far observed, they enable predictions. If confirmed by data, this strengthens our reliance on the theory.

Take satnav systems, for example. These rely on the predictions of relativity and quantum theories. Every time a satnav system is used, the theories it was based on are tested again. But, until we know "everything," theories, even the successful ones, will still be theories.

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

The problem with science is that it is at best a description of reality. How accurate is that description? That question is answered by committees, peer groups, consensus, using the sticks and rocks of scientific findings.

Religions also offer a description of reality.

The news media also offers a description of reality.

Philosophers also offer their descriptions of reality, using premeses that must be accepted de facto.

And each of these descriptions are bolstered up by other descriptions of common observations, recorded testimonies, etc.

Spirituality is distinct from these in accepting only direct personal experience.

What you thought you saw and felt is not the same as what you saw and felt. In spirituality there is no secondary, abstracted, derivative of mental description.

The good news? Reality is reality and the mystic learns to experience it directly, and in doing so learns to open new doors to more of it.

The bad news? Any description is going to be a secondary witness at best, the witness of the thinking mind, with all its limitations.

A theory is kissing through a phone call.

Spiriruality is making love entirely naked.

A theory is an idea about something. Thinking about...

Spirituality is being that something, knowing.

[Spence Tepper]

Spirituality isn't just learning to see what you are looking at.
It is about seeing what your brain is constantly working to filter out and forget. What your brain washes over and makes invisible all the time, hiding reality from you 24/7.

Spirituality is about taking off the brain's thousands of blinders altogether, dissolving the scales the brain has covered over our eyes and keeps covering dutifully every moment.

Spirituality is walking up from the constant black outs the brain is always creating, several times a second.

Until that happens how can anyone ever hope to know anything?

[Spence Tepper]

When you walk, why do the surroundings look stable, even though watching a video taken by a camera attached to someone walking can look jarring and even nauseating? The human brain creates an illusion of a stable reality, as it attempts to paint a picture of what it thinks is real. What you think you see as "now" can be several seconds old because the brain is working hard to piece the illusion together all the time. Science has shown that this illusion can be as old as fifteen seconds.

https://news.yahoo.com/everything-see-15-seconds-past-225900638.html

We are living in a controlled hallucination.

Is that the best place to form theories about reality?

[Appreciative Reader]

This is elementary, and no doubt everyone here is already well aware of this, but a discussion on the difference between "fact" and "theory" may perhaps be further clarified by also touching on "hypothesis". In layman terms we're wont to use the latter two interchangeably, but technically they're not equivalent.

So you have facts, direct observations. Apples falling on bewigged solemn men dozing under apple trees.

And you have hypotheses. Said solemn bewigged man thinking up narratives to explain why he's got that lump on his head.

As an intermediate step we may touch on the part where he irons out inconsistencies in his hypothesis.

And then there's the all important evidence --- predictions, and experiment, and validation, and all the rest of it. Which gives you a bona fide theory. Still tentative, essentially; but a whole different category of "tentative" than wild speculation or even unsupported hypothesis.

[Appreciative Reader]

"Spirituality is walking up from the constant black outs the brain is always creating, several times a second.

Until that happens how can anyone ever hope to know anything?"

(Posted by: Spence Tepper | February 21, 2022 at 10:51 PM)

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But have *you* actually done that, that waking up thing? If you haven't, then isn't this all just hearsay? It's kind of ironical to posit something as better than abstraction, basis further abstraction and hearsay, isn't that so?

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Spence, you've spoken often enough about your experiences with sound and light and the inner master. But we're talking here about one feature that many schools of meditation have in common ---- the alleged stage where, and as you say, that gap in perception is obliterated, and one is --- allegedly --- able to apprehend reality more closely than one ordinarily does. Not in the sense of merely being more aware, and not in the elementary sense of not being absent-minded, but in a more fundamental and technical sense.

Have you actually experienced that as well? Because if you have, then your talking of your personal experiences and focused on that aspect --- you personal experience, mind, not what others have said and/or what you merely think and imagine and conclude --- would make for fascinating reading (as are your accounts of your sound and light and inner experiences, as well). I don't think you've ever discussed this particular aspect of your experiences, far as I can remember. Would you? Focused around that?

(And if you haven't, then perhaps a clear admission might help clarify where you're coming from, in saying what you have in these comments here.)

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
I try my best only to speak about things I've experienced. Not a perfect record, but in this case, yes.

Notice I said experienced. You can speak to that yourself also.

You do witness things directly too. You are witnessing what your mind places before you. Most of the time you have no conscious awareness that your brain is creating what you see and that you are looking at that. It's seamless, in part because your brain does not normally let you be conscious of anything else. So you just think you are seeing things as they are and accept that as reality. And when you recognize someone or something, like the words on this page, you don't realize that this is your brain having done the translation from symbols. You take it as a direct experience of the words.

You begin to separate you, they one who consciously perceives, from your perceptions and thinking even just thinking in retrospect about choices you have made. Introspection.

Meditation allows you to view these processes as they happen. Watching your thoughts is a form of detachment. Then you begin to see that the only power your thoughts have is proportional to the attention you pay to them. Attend to something else and gradually they lose their mind - control grip on your conscious awareness.

As that happens you become aware of other things, other thoughts that were hidden, and other perceptions. As you layer through all that by noticing, so that you increase your skill at setting more, but not fully attending, so that those things don't take control, little by little your experiences change. That's where space, light and sound emerge.

Have you not experienced any of this in meditation?

[Appreciative Reader]

That doesn't address what I asked, though, does it?

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But, to address what you'd said, Spence, and separately from what I'd myself asked: I guess yes, I have indeed, in some measure, experienced being aware of my thoughts, experienced my thoughts lessening in frequency, experienced my thoughts and emotions lessening their hold on me and becoming things I'm watching rather than things that control me. To an extent, and for a space, yes.

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But what I was curious about is whether you yourself had "awoken", whether for short spurts or more protractedly, into the kind of direct apprehension of the world that you were speaking of here. If you have, or at least if you think you have, then I'd love to hear from you what that was like.

What I'd asked was clear enough, but still, to clarify further: You'd said, "When you walk, why do the surroundings look stable, even though watching a video taken by a camera attached to someone walking can look jarring and even nauseating? The human brain creates an illusion of a stable reality, as it attempts to paint a picture of what it thinks is real. ... We are living in a controlled hallucination." Well, have you ever experienced what it's like not to look through that mental filter, and to perceive the world directly and outside of that controlled hallucination? If you have, what was that like, exactly?

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR:

You wrote:
"But what I was curious about is whether you yourself had "awoken", whether for short spurts or more protractedly, into the kind of direct apprehension of the world that you were speaking of here. If you have, or at least if you think you have, then I'd love to hear from you what that was like."

Very strange. Nothing is solid. We are all fields of energy. No object is solid. What the brain perceives becomes like a background layer, and over that is another direct level of perception. What you look at, you understand immediately. Including other people. Their story just unrolls for you.

And it becomes stimulus overload. There's a reason the brain does so much filtering. The utility of direct perception is really internal. The external show, the brain is already giving you a picture. It's the internal experience, like a muddy pond, you see nothing, until the mind settles down. Then you see astounding things.

[Appreciative Reader]

Thank you!!

Am bookmarking this short comment, in order to be able to digest it at leisure later on.

(Of course, my customary pinch of salt, as to whether this does represent what you think and have said it does. But, that apart, and taking the experience itself at face value, I find this fascinating. You'll be interested to know that, while I've myself never experienced this sort of thing, I've personally spoken with people who have, which, to me, adds a degree of verisimilitude to your account. Not that I'm tossing away my stock of salt, but still.)

Anything else you'd like to add would be greatly appreciated. (And it's fine if you don't want to go on. After all there's no end to asking for, and supplying, descriptions, and after a point that can get old. Not to me, else I wouldn't have asked, but, in this case, to you. Your call, either way.)

[TENDZIN]

I've lost count of how many of these Science! essays have appeared on this blog, and I have no clue what point is trying to be made by them. These clarions for Science! completely sidestep the many reasons why religion has been shown to be a positive good for humanity.

Also, where is the Science! for Taoism and Dzogchen and Zen? Why are they promoted as being logical and beneficial and Science, when they are all RELIGIONS.

Your arguments do not work.

[Appreciative Reader]

" I have no clue what point is trying to be made by them"

.......Brian's just discussing the basics of science in this case. It's something that interests him. It also interests others, like me. Surely that's reason enough to post about things like this in his blog?

"These clarions for Science! completely sidestep the many reasons why religion has been shown to be a positive good for humanity."

........That sentence makes no sense. No one is sidestepping anything. It's a discussion on science, not religion, so there's no question of sidestepping what isn't even the subject of discussion. And no, religion has most certainly not been shown to be a positive good for humanity, to my knowledge. If you believe it has, and if you believe your POV can be defended, then go ahead and present it. That might make for an interesting discussion, albeit separately from this one.

"Your arguments do not work."

Yes they do.

I'm not a fan for cranky contrariness and criticism for the sake of criticism. Brian's doing great work, both in general, as well as specifically when he posts about subjects like the present --- even if it's kind of elementary, in this case, but still.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Tendzin!
I'm with AR on this.
Brian Ji is a philosopher. That means he can comment on science, religion, spirituality, anything from the point of view of a lover of Truth, in whatever form it comes in.

And by the same token, that means Brian Ji is occasionally a fire-brand, a polemic against self-serving false truths that people tell to flatter themselves and foment fear and hatred among human beings, like religious hatred.

So, if you believe in the good of religion, but you yourself hold a prejudice against another religion, hopefully you can see how limiting that is.

It's hard to believe in someone's love for Christ and watch them hate on Muslims. The God of Muslims is the same God of Jesus Christ. Same God of the Jews. Same Father...read your Quran.

Even the same invisible and compassionate God in Buddha! And in Krishna, Kabir and Gurinder. Same God in you and me. There aren't two. The mind creates thousands. But the actual conscious Spirit of God in all is One. We interpret it differently we see it differently because of our brain's conditioning. But beyond that, Christ is there and all love, pure love for all.

Of course, it would help to have Muslim friends to understand. Mine are all professionals: bankers, doctors, lawyers, mathematicians. All of them, to a one, are non-violent, peaceful and loving. All of them, just as a matter of civility, go out of their way to help out anyone in their visual space that needs help.

So, there must be some quality that is greater than religion inside these people that makes them act as if religious difference count for zero. Just like Jesus taught about the Good Samaritan.

The same quality that allowed Alan Watts to share his own shortcomings right along with his inspiration to something better.

Whatever that is, that is Jesus Christ.

It might also be Brian Ji!

[Ron E.]

I quite like ‘Answer 4’, particularly as it addresses the often-parroted answer that anti-evolutionist come up with, whereas a theory, a scientific theory is a well-tested explanation of the natural world. And the answer-er points out is that what creationists etc. are really thinking of is a hypothesis, an idea.

I might add that I mostly prefer scientific theories to many direct personal experiences. Personal experiences are naturally very subjective, such as firm believers in an after-life resulting from an NDE or OBE incident. Discerning illusion from reality is an interesting undertaking – are we capable of such an undertaking? No hypothesis please!

[Appreciative Reader]

" ... what creationists etc. are really thinking of is a hypothesis, an idea ... "

Agreed, Ron. This may sound like semantics, but in as much as words express what we intend to mean, and sometimes influence how we actually think, this conflation in colloquial everyday speech between "theory" and "hypothesis" --- and the fact that there are people, educated people, who actually don't understand the difference --- is ...unfortunate, to say the least.

Add to the above the fact that the word "hypothesis" itself carries two very different senses. On one hand is something like String Theory, which is a hypothesis in which all internal inconsistencies have been carefully ironed out, and that generally gels with extant observations, but doesn't quite make the cut to "theory' because the extra complexity it introduces isn't justified, at least so far, by better explanatory power (than already extant simpler narratives), on the one hand; and wild speculation, on the other.

Sometimes semantics isn't "merely semantics", but actually facilitates (or impedes) understanding, in a very real sense.

[Spence Tepper]

No theory is tested directly. It is an explanation to pull together diverse evidence. A theory is proven, or at least supported by hypothesis testing.

A hypothesis is specifically designed to test one element of a theory. All hypotheses are part of scientific investigation and define what that scientific inquiry and testing are looking for.

A hypothesis is tested by gathering objective information under controlled conditions. Those controls can be in a controlled environment, controlled instrumentation, and / or statistical control to eliminate unrelated variance.

That testing can take two forms. Gathering more data / observations, or experimention.

While a theory may be constructed to help explain available information, it is only a scientific theory if it is used to project or conjecture other events that can only occur if that theory is true, and competing theories are false, through further hypothesis tested.

Therefore a key proof of a theory is new hypothesis testing. It isn't just an explanation of existing data but must be tested under different circumstances where only that explanation will work. In short, hypothesis testing must be used to eliminate alternative explanations and theories.

And that means there must be alternative hypotheses and at least one alternative theory driving those hypotheses and the subsequent testing.

[777]

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She is really gorgeous (God)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEGOihjqO9w

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[manjit]

Hey Ron E., hope you are well.

If you would excuse my forthrightness, I have been amused for a while now by your own particular brand of incoherent, unsubstantiated and entirely magical thinking. I also notice occasional moments of frustration at your perception some/all of the woo-woo inclined folks here don't grasp the self-evident "reality" (you imagine) which you so brilliantly elucidate us on. It is priceless in the sense it is just as full of magical thinking and just as disconnected from "reality as it is" as are the most bizarre and unsubstantiated of magical religious belief systems!

You repeatedly refer to this "brain" which is the sole "cause" of our consciousness, being and transpersonal/transcendent experiences etc, and how all these magical thinkers cannot see that their beliefs and desires are disconnected from "reality as it is", with "reality" being something our "brain" exclusively "does".

What is absent from your repetition of these ultra-simplistic, ultra-one-dimensional reductions are the following facts:

1) Despite the extravagant and speculative claims of Kevin Nelson, Chalmers or whichever ideologues you quote, there is literally and factually ZERO evidence to suggest the "brain" generates consciousness. It is ALL pure speculation & wishful thinking, factually speaking. There is also ZERO percentage of people who view the brain OUTSIDE of the primacy of their own consciousness. In other words, consciousness IS the reality, and all talk about the "brain" is conceptual, intellectual, mental and disconnected/removed from "reality as it is". Have you even ever seen this "brain" you imagine in your mind explains everything? Even if you have seen a brain, you certainly haven't seen it conduct the magical acts you keep claiming it does, ie. generating consciousness!

2) Despite there literally being no evidence that the brain generates consciousness or transpersonal/transcendent experiences, you repeat this magical and scientifically unproven claim numerous times. (please, do not conflate the altering of the contents of consciousness by manipulation of the brain with a causal mechanism of consciousness itself. This is so sophomoric it is embarrassing, imo. 100 years ago the brain-as-filter theory of consciousness was proposed - your one-dimensional view of causality is easily demonstrated to be simplistic and naive. Just like altering the make-up of a radio can change the sound that comes out of it, it does not mean the original sound is not coming from a studio far, far away. Yes, there is no scientific evidence (though there IS copious and overwhelming anecdotal evidence) for this theory - JUST like there isn't - and, mark my words, never will be - any evidence that matter or the "brain" generate consciousness, despite the desperate attempts of materialist ideologues to locate such a "God spot" or whatever other reductionist and naive nonsense they wishfully and magically proclaim. Their entire endeavor has been a massive failure, factually speaking. I keep repeating the word factually, because I think it important to distinguish factual reality from ideological, magical, wishful & speculative thinking, such as "brain generates consciousness", from actual FACTUAL thinking, such as "there is precisely zero evidence the brain generates consciousness, and we haven't even got a semi-coherent theory for how it could possibly do so, despite decades of desperate materialists trying to prove it" for eg. Very, very important, lest conceptual ideologies get conflated with "reality as it is" :). We are no closer to understanding consciousness today than we were 100 years ago. This is identical to any religious person who repeats their cosmological beliefs and wishes despite there being literally no evidence for it. An unquestioning faith in promissory materialism is what you are demonstrating, AT BEST - at worst, you delusionally believe science has already cracked these uncrackable mysteries and that faith isn't even needed!

3) Both yourself and the blog owner often refer to subjective experience not proving anything, or even suggesting (well, Brian certainly does) that all such people who recount such experiences are liars, delusional or very, very stupid etc.

Would it simply not be more honest to admit YOU have no in depth or consistent familiarity with such states to enable you to critically examine them at your leisure? Of course it should be obvious, you actually refer to a straw-man inside your own heads of what these experiences are like, and actually shed no light or insight on these experiences whatsoever. A blind man cannot comment on visual art, I'm afraid. Though they can certainly kid themselves that they have valuable insight into it, and how people with actual vision "just don't get it" :)

Peace and love, manjit :)

[um]

@ Manjit

Makes interesting thinking that there is no proof and will never be a proof that the brain causes consciousness, realizing that we were raised with that idea in school and accepted it as self evident.

[Appreciative Reader]

manjit, um,

Go with the simplest explanation, other things being equal.

(And if you're advocating for the more complex explanation, then it is on you to show how your more convoluted explanation explains more facts. That's a simple application of how the burden of proof works.)

For instance: There is no proof that what you know about the Internet is correct. Here's a hypothesis: The Internet actually sets up a connection amongst the infinite parallel universes, many of them filled with forces of unspeakable evil. Every time anyone accesses the Internet, they open the universe up to the risk of annihilation, or worse. But luckily for them, there's Appreciative Reader working quietly in the background to keep everyone safe. This divine being --- the one that goes by the handle Appreciative Reader --- is actually the God of one of the other universes, and is the most powerful being in *all* of the universes. And this being protects the universes by battling the forces of evil. And that is why you remain unharmed, despite accessing the Internet. Oh, and this divine being occasionally amuses himself by mingling with the plebs, on an equal footing with them, by commenting online.

There isn't and never will be proof that this ain't so.

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Incidentally, this more complex and unnecessarily convoluted explanation is the part that is "magical thinking". Not the preference for the simpler explanation that explains the facts just as well.

[Ron E.]

Manjit.

“All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.” – Dutch neuroscientist Dick Swaab.

And as you mentioned, Neurologist K. Nelson, he states “No brain-stem, no consciousness. You may not be dead, but if not, you will be in an irreversible coma” - ‘The God Impulse’. Nelson who has also researched OBE and NDE’ experiences strongly suggest brain functions for these phenomena, but he also adds that they are no less valuable to humans because of these findings. In fact, he feels that certain drugs that produce such effects should be seriously considered by health authorities for the benefits they could confer.

For consciousness to arise there needs to be an observer and an object, whether that object is out there or generated internally as memory or thought. Where a brain is impaired, the connections are compromised resulting in no conscious experience. Research proves these theories to be correct; what is not yet proved is what scientists and philosophers call ‘the neural correlates of consciousness’ – how the brain does this is the unknown factor. But just because its unknown, making consciousness into something magical is (IMO) unnecessary.

Since the classic idea of God has receded into the background somewhat, inevitably there will always be other concepts that seem to avoid facing the distinct possibility (and sometimes facts) that we and the universe are purely explainable through natural processes – and the mystery of consciousness seems to be one of the straws that people cling to.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Ron
You wrote
"“All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.” – Dutch neuroscientist Dick Swaab."

That is the theory. Unfortunately there are a number of scientific facts that do not support this claim. Basically they have to do with an unsolved mystery about speed.

The time it takes for a runner to convert the sound of the starting pistol at his/her ear into a command to start the leg muscles moving is about 150 milliseconds.

That’s enough time for light to travel all the way around the world.

A computer can add about 50 million 10 digit numbers together in that amount of time.

And that’s not even a complicated thought!

So our brains are extremely slow, in terms of how fast we appear to think.

Part of this is simply how long it takes for our biochemical neurons to transfer signals.

"Signals are transmitted from one neuron to another by using special chemicals, called "neurotransmitters". The speed of these signals depends on how fast the exchange of charged ions is inside and outside of the cell membrane. The main ions involved are sodium, potassium, chloride, and calcium.

"Without going into details, I can say that messages in the brain can travel at speeds up to 268 miles/hour."
http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=1950

Clearly our biochemical brains function much, much slower than an electronic computer, from the above.

Not only is the speed of neuro chemical transmission incredibly slow, but our brain must procees trillions of such transmissions every second.

" 268 Speed (in miles per hour) at which signals travel along an alpha motor neuron in the spinal cord, the fastest such transmission in the human body. Sensory receptors in the skin, which lack the speed-boosting insulating layer called a myelin sheath, are among the slowest, at 1 mph."

And this very slow chemical transition must work its way through huge distances....

"100,000 Miles of myelin-covered nerve fibers in the brain of an average 20-year-old. Neuroscientists at UCLA, who have studied myelination in the brains of adults ages 23 to 80, reported in September that the coating peaks around age 39—the same age at which participants hit top speeds in standard tests of motor abilities."

"100 trillion Minimum number of neural connections, or synapses, in the human brain. That is at least 1,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy. British researchers reported in December that genes involved in the workings of synapses account for about 7 percent of our genome."
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/numbers-the-nervous-system-from-268-mph-signals-to-trillions-of-synapses

." .. the human brain has at least a quarter of a million miles of wiring—more than enough to reach from Earth to the moon—and is already packed tight."
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-brain-what-is-the-speed-of-thought

How can we possibly think in real time?
Computers, which use electronic signals are much faster than our biochemical brain. Electronic signals travel

" Electricity is the flow of electrons through a conductor in an electrical field. In the case of an electrical cord connecting a table lamp or some other household item to a power source, the copper wire inside the cord acts as the conductor.

" This energy travels as electromagnetic waves at about the speed of light, which is 670,616,629 miles per hour,"

https://www.vivintsolar.com/blog/how-fast-does-electricity-travel

That's 268 miles per hour for the human brain biochemical signals vs 670,619,629 miles per hour for electronic signals.

Electronic signals are 2.5 MILLION TIMES FASTER than our brain's biochemical signals....

Of course a computer simulating our brain would run at least TWO AND A HALF MILLION TIMES FASTER, right? If our consciousness is based on this gooey biochemical brain.

Well, here is the mystery...

"One of the world's most powerful supercomputers is still no match for the humble human brain, taking 40 minutes to replicate a single second of brain activity.

" Researchers in Germany and Japan used K, the fourth-most powerful supercomputer in the world, to simulate brain activity. With more than 700,000 processor cores and 1.4 million gigabytes of RAM, K simulated the interplay of 1.73 billion nerve cells and more than 10 trillion synapses, or junctions between brain cells. Though that may sound like a lot of brain cells and connections, it represents just 1 percent of the human brain's network."
https://www.livescience.com/42561-supercomputer-models-brain-activity.html

That's 40 minutes vs 1 second. Our gooey brains, according to these recent findings, operate more than 40x 60 = 2,400 FASTER THAN THE ONE OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST AND FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTERS!

There is no way, from what we know today in the neurosciences, to prove how a super computer 700,000 processors strong with transfer rates TWO MILLION TIMES Faster than the human brain runs more than 2,000 times SLOWER.

To say we know enough to claim it is a closed system is far from the truth.

[Ron E.]

Wow Spence. You've convinced me - that the brain is such an amazing bilogical creation it would have no problem creating a simple thing as consciousness -along with the myth of a separate self, free will and independent mind.And probably much more of a supernatural bent.

[zenjen]

When I watch this video "Skylight: More Than Meets the Eye" it makes me aware of how minuscule this planet called Earth is and what little nothings we humans are ... just enjoy this life as best as we can ... :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqid-6jojtM

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Ron E.

Yes the brain is amazing. But you missed the mystery!

Our brain, biochemically, is way too slow for us to think in anything like real time.

Yet, it processes more connections, trillions of them, may times a second! Faster than the fastest computer ever built.

The mystery is that, currently science has no evidence, and no proof of how an entirely chemically based brain does this.

What Science has shown us, paradoxically, in detail, is that these chemical reactions are too slow to explain how we think, consciously, in real time.

Therefore, we don't know the whole story.

How can a biochemical process that is 2.5 million times slower than electronic signals function over two thousand times faster?

It's a mystery.

But one thing is certain.

The biochemical signals in the human brain do not function fast enough for trillions of them to happen at a speed that dwarfs the speed of electronics. Literally that would be 2000+ times the speed of light. Can't hapoen. Physically impossible. Yet our odds happening!

The reason is hard evidence that neither you nor I have. Nor any scientist today.

We must say, being rational, that we don't know. Something else is going on.

That's what a scientist would say. And continue to dig deeper into this unsolved, wonderful, and astounding mystery.

Rather than be confident in your own presumption, that is unproven, why not be excited NOT to know, by the sheer astounding mystery before us?

One day we will find out how this works. And since the laws of biochemistry and physics can't be violated, the answer will not be in our biochemistry or current physics.

[Solomon]

First Scan of the Dying Brain Reveals a "Last Recall"

Published: February 22, 2022

https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/first-scan-of-the-dying-brain-reveals-a-last-recall-358807

[Dungeness]

@ AR [ Go with the simplest explanation, other things being equal. (And if you're advocating for the more complex explanation, then it is on you to show how your more convoluted explanation explains more facts. That's a simple application of how the burden of proof works. ]

Here's a cautionary tale about the intersection of scientific method with hidden bias.
from: https://ishanews.org/media/transcripts/eng/Practice_Withdrawal_of_Attention.pdf)

True account: A young girl in a rural Russian town recalls an alleged past life in Japan
in exacting detail including names, addresses written in fluent Japanese script. An Indian
researcher Dr. Banerjee and a team of Russian scientists/psychologists flew to Japan.
They confirmed the factual details of her story.

Russian Academy of Sciences Conclusion: Brain cell memory molecules from the
girl's deceased past life corpse escaped into the atmosphere, drifted long distances,
before landing with laser precision to become absorbed in the girl's pregnant mother's
bloodstream and on to the girl herself. Voilà!

[ Incidentally, this more complex and unnecessarily convoluted explanation is the part that is "magical thinking". Not the preference for the simpler explanation that explains the facts just as well. ]

So.. an elegant scientific explanation or a hypothesis run amok?

[manjit]

Hey Ron E., thanks for your reply.

It does not appear you have fully grasped or understood the meaning of my post.

You see, I am very familiar with the extravagant, speculative, completely unproven and imo absurdly disconnected from actual factual reality ideological wishful thinking of Kevin Nelson, and have been for a decade or so. I have also read serious academic destructions of his over-reaching claims, years ago.

The point isn't so much that his astonishingly absurd and entirely non sequitur "explanation" for NDEs as being caused by fainting or lack of oxygen have unequivocally been shown to be entirely unrelated to the ACTUAL phenomena of NDEs (both on a scientifically biological and subjective content level) to the extent that any and all serious scientific researchers into NDEs entirely reject his ideological and speculative hypothesis. Neither is it the point that his bizarre and once again entirely unrelated to the ACTUAL phenomena of OBEs explanation of their "cause" based on the research of Olaf Blanke is entirely non-sequitur, because despite their desperate claims in pop-media, Olaf Blanke never even remotely triggered "OBEs" in his subjects. You are not in the loop here so let me fill you in; the cliched description of the phenonema of NDEs and OBEs that Nelson and Blanke describe is not recognised by a SINGLE person who has ACTUALLY had an NDE or OBE. They have built up straw men, and taken then down with such fanfare from the materialists - but it's all a sham. People have NDEs without oxygen deprivation, fainting is nothing like an NDE, and whatever Blanke is describing with his neural manipulations, it CERTAINLY isn't an OBE. It is an act of magical and wishful thinking to even suggest it is, so vast and obvious is the discrepancy.

But as I say, none of that is the point.

Neither is it the point that you've read one or two books, and despite those books containing unproven, unscientific, speculative and ultimately erroneous and ideologically motivated views, that you have found them convincing, and now reverently refer to them as holy scriptures that you never question. Neither is it the point that you are unfamiliar with alternative views, or views which show these materialist perspectives to be disconnected from factual reality. No, no, none of this is the point - this is all par for the course for human belief and the need for certainty. Human ignorance coupled with arrogance is nothing new or rare. What do you think any Christian, Muslim, RS follower etc is doing? Precisely the same as you; they have encountered a set of concepts, linguistic terminology, cosmology etc which they resonate with and find convincing, and mistakenly conflate with "reality as it is", whilst steadfastly and religiously remaining ignorant of facts, realities or concepts which are contradictory or even disproving of that world-view of belief system. We should never under-estimate the propensity for ignorance and arrogance in the human mind. I find it highly amusing when people can kid themselves in this way after reading just 1 or 2 books! I have read thousands, and I still haven't got a clue. You've read one utterly absurd and disconnected from reality book by Kevin Nelson and deign this worthy enough knowledge to preach with? Hehehehe....ah, humans, got love em :)

No, no, no......none of this is the point and all of this is utterly predictable, par for the course, standard fare etc.

My point was somewhat more simple than this, easier to grasp and kind of unarguable as it is self-evident & obvious; that your incessant abstract, conceptual, mental, intellectual deferral to the "brain" has absolutely nothing, on any level at all, to do with "reality as it is"; it is actually and quite plainly, profoundly abstract and disconnected from "reality as it is". Is this not staggeringly obvious? There is nothing wrong in providing certainty for your mind and intellect by pretending you have it all figured out by referring to this "brain" and how it magically does this or that. The point of my post was merely that it is highly amusing you believe this intellectual and conceptual exercise is somehow viewing "reality as it is", as you have repeatedly claimed, whereas it is clearly just another belief system.

Anyway, as you were.

Hi Um - each culture & generation has their own set of half truths and half lies, for humans need certainty. Certainty there is life after death, or certainty there is no life after death. Doesn't matter which, along as we have certainty :) Most humans simply are not emotionally or intellectually intelligent enough to live with uncertainty, doubt etc. So we teach our children some sort of story to make sense of the world, and whether it's true or not has very little relevance. The past century in the West, our monotheistic God became matter. I believe we are now moving out of that reductionist cycle into a more non-binary, non-dualistic, open-ended era......though it would take decades if not centuries to filter down into standardized education.

Hi Spencer - nice info! :)

Hi Appreciative Reader! - I'm sorry, but as I think I've mentioned to you before, I find your so-called "rational" and "logical" perspective to be more "just so" thinking, ie. whilst being entirely irrational and illogical, you falsely imagine it to be so, just like any religious believer. You are unaware of the limitations, flaws and contradictions in your entire perspective on these subjects, and "woo" as you like to call it. All "just so" thinking, "I think what I think and what I think is right because it's right", whilst being oblivious & ignorant of the vast contradictory information, views and facts.

What is this "simplest explanation" you refer to?

Let me get this exactly correct, do you mean to say that out of complete nothingness, something magically emerged? Do you mean to say out of this magically appearing "something", which is completely inert, mindless, pointless and random, that all the required fine-tuned laws of the universe required for life spontaneously and, once-again, magically appeared. Do you mean to say that from all this random, mindless and meaningless movement of matter, consciousness magically appeared like a rabbit out of a hat that certainly didn't contain a rabbit seconds prior? Do you mean to say that despite this act of magic, we are completely unable to even formulate a speculative hypothesis for how this rabbit, or consciousness, could have been generated from within a hat, or from mindless matter.......only that we are CERTAIN that it must be, because it certainly can't be "God"? Do you mean to say that this meaningless, random accident of consciousness, which is entirely mindless, has managed to work all this out - again all entirely by random, spontaneous movement of molecules and atoms?

Essentially, do you mean to say that if you got a collection of atoms and molecules, put them in a bag, shook them about for a bit and then opened it, that a rabbit would emerge from it?

THIS is your "simple" explanation? Then why does it sound like a "just so" magical thinking explanation with no actual evidence?

Locked into your world view, you appear entirely unable to appreciate that "God did all this" is a far, far simpler explanation than the bizarre, random and mindless magical miracle you suggest caused all this? Ah, but perhaps faced with this obvious argument, you will surely shift the parameters of debate to "evidence" of which, I assure you, you have none for your magical beliefs, only speculation and wishful thinking disguised as "knowledge" and "understanding". Yes, "just so" thinking, all the way down.

But, as I say, to each their own beliefs and world-view, impoverished as they may be.

:)

[manjit]

“We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation. The more we discover about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do both the brain events and the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists . . . who often confuse their religion with their science.”

― John C. Eccles, The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind

As I am quite, quite certain that despite all the pretense or hoopla of being interested in neuroscience on this blog, that most people here will not be aware that John Eccles is essentially the Godfather of neuroscience, a Nobel prize winner and absolute legend.

As is evident on this site, not much has changed, at least in the "pop-science" world, since this quote decades ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eccles_(neurophysiologist)

[manjit]

Ron E. wrote: "Where a brain is impaired, the connections are compromised resulting in no conscious experience."

Reality responded:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/pam-reynolds-near-death-experience

https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/29/near-death-experience-research-time-shake-foundations

[Appreciative Reader]

Hi, Dungeness.

That sounds ...curious, that case you refer to. And, to be fair, one cannot really comment one way or the other without fully studying the case itself. But two things do stand out, well three actually. First, this is not from some science journal but a speech from Super-Guru Jaggi Vasudev, who says some cool things at times, but who's also given to talking utter drivel with a straight face, so I'd suggest taking that with a pinch or salt. Two, the Russian Academy of Sciences's explanation, if truly they'd said that (which I kind of doubt), seems ...entirely weird, you know? And finally, if something of this kind were actually proven, it would be big news. Big news that even in the midst of war in Europe, would stand out. Which it hasn't, so, chances are this is simply hot air.

All of that said, and like I'd said at the outset, the only way to comment meaningfully on the case is by actually familiarizing oneself with it. I've not yet read the piece, but I've bookmarked it to read at leisure later on. Not with a view to actually evaluating the case --- that would take far too long, and in any case may be beyond my personal expertise --- but simply because it looks interesting. Thanks for bringing this up.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hey, manjit. Always a pleasure to explore your views, even if, as now, we disagree!
:---)

-----

".... I find your so-called "rational" and "logical" perspective to be more "just so" thinking, ie. whilst being entirely irrational and illogical, you falsely imagine it to be so ... "

Well, that's whole point of a rational POV. If it ain't that, then it can be clearly shown why not. I'm afraid simply your ex cathedra declaration that that's so doesn't make it so. You'll need to clearly explain what it is you find irrational, and how, in order for that criticism to carry weight.

-----

"Let me get this exactly correct, do you mean to say that out of complete nothingness, something magically emerged? Do you mean to say out of this magically appearing "something", which is completely inert, mindless, pointless and random, that all the required fine-tuned laws of the universe required for life spontaneously and, once-again, magically appeared. Do you mean to say that from all this random, mindless and meaningless movement of matter, consciousness magically appeared like a rabbit out of a hat that certainly didn't contain a rabbit seconds prior? "

It isn't a question of logic, really, but of following the evidence.

There's a storm. Og the caveman doesn't know the how of it, and asks, "Do you mean to say that storm came from nowhere? Why not posit a God of Storms, then, since you don't know?"

-----

"Locked into your world view, you appear entirely unable to appreciate that "God did all this" is a far, far simpler explanation than the bizarre, random and mindless magical miracle you suggest caused all this?"

(a) "God did this" is NOT the simpler explanation, because now, over and above "this", you also have to explain where this God sprang from. Do you really not realize this glaring difficulty with you position?

(b) Besides, and once again, it isn't so much a question of what seems "logical", but more a case of following the evidence. I'm not "locked" in my worldview, and am willing to change that worldview should the evidence so warrant.

(c) That still doesn't explain anything, as far as the actual mechanism of it all. You keep on tossing around the word "magical thinking". Well, THIS is exactly what magical thinking amounts to, literally.

(d) Shorn of all of those fancy words, all you're advocating here is a God-of-the-gaps position. Which is an out-and-out fallacious piece of reasoning, I'm afraid.

-----

"But, as I say, to each their own beliefs and world-view, impoverished as they may be."

Well, the correspondingly wise-ass rejoinder to that would read something like, "To each their own beliefs and worldview, crazily extravagant and literally crazy though they be."

Except that wouldn't be how I feel about your worldview. Unlike you, I'm not "locked" into mine, and am open to considering yours. It's just that yours appears extremely unlikely. But I'm keeping my window open a crack, and the moment I see compelling reason to switch sides, I'll be happy to do that. Every reasonable person would. Unlike you, apparently, if your words here are any indication.

----------------------
----------------------
----------------------

manjit, we've exchanged notes in the past, and you've shared some of your experiences with me. I find them fascinating. I can see how personally having the kinds of experiences you've had would drive you to find some satisfactory narrative that explains it all. But I'm wondering, how exactly do you go from there to God?

Who are what is God, then? Where'd that gentleman spring from?

A discussion around all of that --- how you arrive at your personal POV basis your personal experiences, and what that POV amounts to, and how you defend it --- would be interesting reading, I'm thinking, if you're willing to take the trouble.

[um]

@ Ar

Christ spoke to the masses on the mount. Not that it matters whether there was a Christ, nor a mountain, or masses.

What matters is that he spoke to the masses an people heard what he said and digested it.

No need of scientists to explain what he said.
No need of priests to explain what he had to say.
No need of theologians to explain what he had to say.

Painters paint.
People see the painting and digest what they see
Both can do their thing without experts, scolars, scientists.

These experts and others named are directing the attention AWAY from the "painter, the painting and the onlooker and unto themselves .... they are for that reason labeled as THIEVES.

Ower whole culture, education system is teaching us to turn our attenion to these THIEVES..... time for coffee.

[Appreciative Reader]

"No need of scientists to explain what he said.
No need of priests to explain what he had to say.
No need of theologians to explain what he had to say."

-------------------

Hello, um.

I kind of concur --- to an extent, if not quite with every nook and cranny --- with the point you've made in the past, about one's one experiences vis-a-vis others'.

But as for this, what I have quoted above:

Say you've heard Jesus's sermons. Now at one level you can ignore him, because his experiences are not yours. Fair enough, if that is what you choose to do.

But if you wish to engage with the reality he's discussing, then wouldn't you want to assess if what he describes corresponds with actual reality, your reality?

Hell, if you were Jesus yourself, and heard your divine Father speaking in your head, wouldn't you want to clearly ascertain if you were actually channeling some higher force, or if that were only a voice in your head?

In other words, wouldn't you need science and scientists?

In other words, and to put in your terms:
No need for priests, sure. No need for theologians, sure. But surely we do have need for scientists --- not necessarily white-lab-coated specialists, but of people doing science, if only informally?

(Always assuming you want to engage with Jesus's words, of course. If, lacking his experience, you choose not to waste your time on his words, that's your call, and fair enough, too. But that's a personal decision, surely, that doesn't quite admit of generalization?)

[um]

@ AR
>But if you wish to engage with the reality he's discussing, then wouldn't you want to assess if what he describes corresponds with actual reality, your reality?<

Yes, If listening to what others have to say I have to digest it .. that digesting is my reality ... and ... for that i need no help from others.

If somebody tells me that something is to be found in a given place, say a shop. It is up to me wheyther to believe him or not, whether to heed his words or not. Why should I go to another person and seek his advice about what the first person said??

If you eat apple pie do you ask people at your table i ... is this apple pie?

All know that things thrown in the air can land somewhere and the use that knowledge to their own advantage, they do not need an scientist to explain them gravity ... they would have waited for 2000 years ... for einstein etc to be born ... hahaha

Science has its place .. no doubt about that but it has nothing to attribute as far as living life is concerned, it cannot offer an vision on life.

Trying to do that turns science into a religion.

[Appreciative Reader]

"Science has its place .. no doubt about that but it has nothing to attribute as far as living life is concerned, it cannot offer an vision on life.

Trying to do that turns science into a religion."

-------------------------------------

Sorry, um, but I'm afraid I disagree, squarely. (With just that much, that I've quoted above, and the thrust of your last two comments addressed to me; I continue to agree, broadly that is, with your larger point that you keep making here, about the primacy of one's own experiences vis-a-vis someone elses's --- the whole restaurant thing, that we've discussed at length. But this last, I find this POV less than persuasive.)

You seem to see science as some kind of a tool that simply answers specific questions of a technical nature, and assists in developing technology that keeps us comfortable and happy. I'm sorry, but that's seeing science as some kind of magic; you know, like how the king in the fairly tale orders the mage to rustle up some magick to help repel those invaders from overseas, or quickly rustle up a cure for the dying prince and heir, even as the royal household keeps sacrificing to the gods for rain and a good harvest.

You may have read my rather lengthy exchange with Spence, where Spence started out in disagreement with me but finally ended up seeing things my way. Without revisiting the detailed argument, and in short, what the rational-scientific worldview does is to open up for us a way of viewing the world, a sane clean world that isn't "demon-haunted" (to quote Carl Sagan). It's a world where every time you see a storm you don't dance around wearing beads in an effort to propitiate Odin and Thor and Indra, until such time as every part of the mechanism of storms has been sussed out by those science boffins. It's a world where you look at the things that you don't know as something you don't know, and something that, if you're so inclined, you try to find out more about, but don't immediately rush to fantastic supernatural explanations for just because you still don't know all about it. (Needless to say you remain open to accepting even the supernatural and the miraculous, should such be evidenced, but that isn't the default --- unlike in manjit's worldview, for instance, at least as he discusses it here in this thread.)

The kind of strictly skeptical spiritual approach that, for instance, Dungeness advocates, and sometimes Spence as well, is not what religions are normally like. Your garden variety religion that your garden variety theist follows basically offers people a lens through which to view the world. (And in as much as that lense is entirely faulty, it presents a distorted upside-down view of the world, that occasionally by happenstance rings true, kind of like a stopped watch giving you the right time twice a day.) Well, science, or more correctly a scientific worldview, also offers you a lens to view the world, a sane rational view of the world. To that very limited extent, yes, you may indeed liken science with religion, and that is a comparison I'm happy to embrace, in that very limited sense.

So is the lens that science provides to us perfect? No, obviously not. Clearly it is a work-in-process, clearly it is constantly being updated and improved. But it is the best we've got. It's the only one we've got that's reliable. It's head and shoulders above the craziness of religion in terms of both accuracy and precision, and utility as well. But I suggest that it is also better than a personal idiosyncratic worldview, most times at least, in as much such a worldview is susceptible to a hundred and one biases. (Science, collectively done, isn't exactly entirely free of bias; but those biases are glitches, bugs, that are sought to be corrected. Correcting those biases is the whole point of science, even if it doesn't always succeed 100%. While personal biases generally stay on unaddressed, distorting one' view of the world. Sure, if one takes the effort to rid oneself of one's personal biases when arriving at one's personal POV, then I agree that it might be possible, at least in theory, to arrive at a personal worldview that is 'better' than an impersonal scientific one --- in the sense that such a worldview might embrace the best of both worlds. But very few actually conceive of such, and far less actually execute it. So that my default remains the impersonal scientific worldview, while not discounting the carefully curated personal worldview provided the latter is very carefully curated and nurtured and weeded.)

[manjit]

Hi Appreciative Reader!

Ignoring your specious and half-baked arguments which are easily rebutted should one have the inclination (I don't), I'll reply briefly to the following:

"manjit, we've exchanged notes in the past, and you've shared some of your experiences with me. I find them fascinating. I can see how personally having the kinds of experiences you've had would drive you to find some satisfactory narrative that explains it all. But I'm wondering, how exactly do you go from there to God?

Who are what is God, then? Where'd that gentleman spring from?"

1) AR: "I can see how personally having the kinds of experiences you've had would drive you to find some satisfactory narrative that explains it all."

Reply: No, I have absolutely zero interest in narratives, satisfactory or not. A fully fed person has no interest in menus.

You, like Brian has done before you, have conflated my destruction of YOUR narrative as me somehow advocating my own because you have no comprehension of a concept and narrative-less mode of being.

I consider narratives to be like confetti, mere playthings of children.

2) AR: " But I'm wondering, how exactly do you go from there to God? Who are what is God, then? Where'd that gentleman spring from?""

Again, I have no need or requirements for narratives, labels or concepts.

My use of the word "God" was merely to juxtapose this ultra-simple "explanation" for everything with your own more complex "explanation" in context of you suggesting the "simplest" explanation is the more likely.

Your rebuttal to this, that there are "gaps" in this theory, AGAIN entirely missed the point; there are MORE gaps in the materialist magical thinking.

So, to clarify, I am not proposing a "God" as MY theory, but as a juxtaposition to YOUR incoherent, unproven, more gaps than swiss-cheese theory that life and consciousness is a random and accidental product of atoms and molecules, which themselves magically appeared out of nothing. Magic trick upon magic trick upon magic trick, is the materialist fantasy.

It may have got past you, so I'll reiterate - what you are proposing is that if you got a bag and put into it all the required atoms and molecules, then closed and shook the bag for 20 minutes, that a rabbit would emerge from this bag.

I put it to you that the emergence of the universe, life and consciousness out of "nothingness" is EXPONENTIALLY more unlikely than the rabbit out of a hat full of atoms shaken for 20 minutes scenario.

This is, actually, inarguable.

But as I always say, we are all entitled to our own delusional, magical beliefs if they give us purpose and certainty in life.

If y'all want to quite Christian or RS church to go to Atheist church, like Brian, knock yourselves out.

But isn't it obvious we're all clueless as to the actual nature of reality, and our impoverished world views are about as likely as a dog's howling at the moon being an explanation for lunar cycles?

:)

[Appreciative Reader]

WTF, manjit. I wasn't trying to arm-wrestle with you about this, and had asked what I did here in order to explore your POV, if you would like that. Clearly you're more interested in attempting to score points, rather than actually engage. Not a very happy place, that, the sprinkling of smileys notwithstanding. Clearly the other thread's spilling on to this one as well.

Take it easy. Not doing the arm-wrestling thing, thanks very much.